CPS postponing budget

With many of its top executives on the way to Japan to negotiate a multibillion-dollar nuclear deal with Toshiba and two more on administrative leave for their part in a failure to report a potential $4 billion increase in the project’s cost, CPS Energy has a lot up in the air right now.

One item from Monday’s board meeting that might have escaped notice is the utility’s decision to postpone its budget process until it gets a better handle on the future of the proposed nuclear project.

Typically, the utility would begin its budgeting process now, but with nuclear and many other large projects pending, Interim General Manager Steve Bartley wants to hold off. Instead he thinks the board should review the utility’s capital plans while it waits for a cost update from Toshiba expected by Dec. 31. This will push the discussion of the utility’s budget much closer to the Feb. 1 beginning of its fiscal year.

“With or without nuclear we have a significant capital plan over the next several years and I think we all need to understand it (and) understand timing from the rating context,” Bartley said. “We think our time is better spent having that conversation.”